


Fuel to Fire

by Astoria



Category: Baby (Netflix), Baby (TV 2018)
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Codependency, F/M, Introspection, Redemption, Unhealthy Relationships, rewriting of season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:41:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27147494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astoria/pseuds/Astoria
Summary: "He was an asshole but he loved her more than he hated himself."OrA rewriting of their relationship during season 3
Relationships: Ludo/Fiore, Ludovica Storti/Claudio Fiorenzi, Ludovica Storti/Fiore
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. Do you want me on your mind or do you want me to go on

He should have protected her. He knew it. With Saverio when she was drunk and barely standing up on her own. He should have gone up to his boss, his mentor, his blood and told him to let her go or he would kill him. Should have punched him right in the face, the face of the man who helped him all these years, make his smirking mouth bleed and grab her from his arms. He should have carried her to the car, his boss’ car. He should have brought her to his apartment and he should have let her sleep it off. She would have woken up the next morning a bit disoriented but safe and grateful he was here for her.

But Fiore had done none of these things.

He let Savieri touch her. Let her protests go unheard. Let the kid Damiano save her.

He should have protected her from the get-go. Not offer her some kind of coerced deal to be a whore.

He remembered exactly that moment, when she slowly understood what they were saying, how slow she turned her head to him, how slow she had blinked not out of trust like cats do but out of shock he reckoned. Shock that it was happening at all or simply shock that it had not happened sooner.

Ludovica had a reputation at school, he had heard it through the grapevine. He usually didn’t care about schoolgirls and their petty affairs but when he had seen her dance, he knew she was special.

Dirty men, naughty, disgusting pigs usually noticed young girls like her too. Fiore didn’t think he fit that category not simply because he was young and handsome and not some weird guy in a trench coat, but because he didn’t see her as this sixteen-year-old rebellious teen he could fuck quickly to fulfil that porn category fantasy, but as _Ludo_. He didn’t even care about Chiara in that way. He saw her as a good way to make a lot of money immediately. He didn’t feel that way about Ludo.

Maybe that defence was fucked. But that’s how he felt.

And he was fucked, he knew it.

He had done nothing to protect her. None of these things.

Just a coward and an asshole.

Weak as he was, he loved her like a madman and he did everything to get her back in his arms. He set off the crazy client after her, he made her scared, he fabricated a whole story so she would run back to him.

Still nothing. She held him as far away as possible. He was heartbroken and so was she, he could tell, but probably not for the same reasons.

She wanted out, that much was clear. She wanted to be a normal teenager who would kiss her mother on the cheek when leaving for school in the morning. There she would greet her best friend and they would make plans to hangout after school to do some shopping because they had seen some cute guys. She would go to class, stress about her upcoming exams and laugh with her stepbrother in the hallway. Then in the evening she would come back home after a last gelato with her friends. She would go to her room and alternate between drawing and studying for that history test tomorrow.

He could read all of that in her eyes, her moves, her decisions. She thought that pushing him would push this life she was burrowed in. But it was not that easy. That role stuck to her skin, it had become her in a way. She could not separate Désirée from Ludovica even if she wanted to.

And Fiore was an asshole, that had already been established. But he was also selfish and he had no one else. No one at all.

That wasn't rare in his line of job, you couldn’t really keep relationships of any kind when you were a ruthless bastard. There had been Natalia in his orbit, as ruthless as him, as smart. Too much like him and he couldn’t stand himself so having a feminine double did not amuse him. And anyway he didn’t feel what he felt for Ludo for her.

Ludo was special and if you asked him to explain why he wasn’t sure he could answer you precisely. There was just something between them that defied understanding. And to a coward like Fiore, seeing such a strength in such a petite girl had been humiliating as much as it had been life saving.

He was attracted to her like a moth to a flame, as ridiculous and cliché as that sounded. He was enchanted by her short black hair and her freckles and her strong nose and the tattoos on her body. He was mesmerized by the force of her character  and her smart mouth  and her feelings that were always on her sleeves, good or bad, and her willingness to please the ones she loved. 

She didn’t _love_ him. At least not the way he wanted her to. She had that small ounce of self preservation that always kicked in when she was with him, and she held him far away from her. For safety, to protect herself. 

He wanted her barriers gone, he wanted her all to himself. 

He was selfish and he had no one, save for Ludo. He would always fight for her. He needed to destroy her a bit so she could turn back to him. He needed to make her feel like she was nothing more than Désirée, could not be more that that. He would hurt her willingly, put her down and console her at the end. 

No one can say they weren’t warned he was an asshole. 


	2. Be gone be faraway

She walked into the apartment with light footsteps, always wary of being in that place. He knew she hated that place and what it represented: supposed to be a safe haven to be a whore in peace. That wasn’t peace for her. Still he had asked her to come and she had come. Out of obligation or something else he couldn’t tell.

“Fiore?” She asked while entering the bedroom. He was sprawled on the bed, on ugly bedsheets with a floral pattern. It was hideous but at least it as clean and Chiara had not brought anyone back in a few days. “What did you want?” She crossed her arm while asking, putting distance, _once again,_ between them.

“Do you remember when Brando got his nose broken?” He answered a propos of nothing. He wanted her to remember that moment she saw him at school and she sent him a text. The joy, the exhilaration she felt at the idea of being protected, of being avenged. Because, yes, he was a coward and a bastard and he had not done enough to protect her but he had done that. Beat the living shit out of that _stronzo_ , that had put her out there created all that public humiliation and ostracisation she had to endure almost alone.

Her brows furrowed in confusion, trying to understand what he was getting at. “Yes?”

“I protected you, didn’t I?”

“Yes.” She repeated in a sigh. She rolled her eyes discreetly. She knew what he was trying to do and it seemed like she was going to let him talk without listening to him.

She had already made a decision about him.

He felt cold all over. He hadn’t realised how deep the gap was, how profound the separation had already been done in her mind. In his life he always fought for what he wanted and what he felt he deserved and most of the time it worked.

Now it was all useless. He felt cold and he started sweating out of nowhere and his stupid, mean, manipulative plan was kaput. He had planned to convince her to stay with him no matter what as a whore, as Ludo, as anything as long as she stayed. He was going to be charming or threatening depending on her reactions. He was going to do his all.

But at that moment he knew no matter what he said or did she would not come back. He felt stupid and small on this disgusting bed where two teenagers fucked men old enough to be their fathers. He felt sick at the idea and the image he had no trouble envisioning of Ludo being touched by these men.

It had always bothered him to an extent. But in his mind he always tried to differentiate Désirée from Ludo. Désirée didn’t exist, Ludo did. And he loved Ludo.

He changed everything he had prepared to say. That was useless now and he felt a deep fatigue down to his bones. “Go Ludo. Just,” He rubbed his hand on his face, trying to scrub any emotion he felt even though he could hear his voice crack in the middle of his sentence. “Go”. He repeated begging her to understand what he was trying to say and do.

Ludo startled at his words or his tone. She uncrossed her arms and looked at him more precisely. He tried to imagine what he looked like through her eyes: she had told him before how she had always found him handsome and she liked to stare at his biceps. But now she probably saw a pathetic man on a bed. He had dark circles under his eyes from sleepless nights: worry about Ludo, about the future of his business, about the police coming closer and closer everyday. His beard was longer, he had not been at the barber in a few weeks. His usually tailored tight black clothes had been replaced by comfortable jeans and a hoodie. He felt like a shadow of his former self and he wanted to run away. From this life, from all the people he couldn’t trust and from himself. “What’s going on?” He could hear alarm in her tone.

“Nothing Ludo, nothing.” He tried to give her a small smile and her eyes slithered in a distrustful manner. “I’m setting you free, just go.”

Her eyes opened dramatically. Her face turned red. He could almost see the blood pumping in her neck. “You are setting me free?” She yelled. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Setting me free? God what an asshole! You don’t own me, you are aware of that, yes?”

She was entirely right of course. He didn’t own anything of her and he had no power over her captivity or her freedom. She had already made that choice herself when she decided to follow Saverio or to study hard to enter her dream college in Paris. She followed her own rhythm even though the road had been long and hard. She was so close to the normalcy she desperately craved.

Just a few minutes ago he wanted to destroy it all. But he had overestimated his influence on her and even his own willingness to do that. He was an asshole but he loved her more than he hated himself.

“Good luck in Paris.” He answered after a few beats. Her face reddened by anger had turned white. Did she think it was a threat? Honestly it might have been before. Now he wasn’t sure of anything, he just knew that if she wasn’t with him, she had to be happy any way she could. Instead of waiting for another reaction he grabbed his bag where he had put some essential items to leave town. There was a similar bag under the bed, but empty that one.

He had hoped to convince her to come with him far away from here.

He was all alone.

He travelled to a few places outside of Italy, using his connections for the last time and trying to make people forget about the name Fiore. He lay low and when he introduces himself he says ‘Claudio Fiorenzi’. He isn’t really Claudio, hadn’t been in a while. He is trying to go back to Claudio anyway even though he doesn’t always turn his head when he is called by that name. He has to get used to it, and to his new life.

He heard of what happened after he left. The whole castle of cards collapsed like he felt it was going to. Chiara, Damiano, Ludo had been heard in a trial. They found a scapegoat in one of the guys working for him as he wasn’t here to be accused. He didn’t feel guilty about fleeing,  tried not to feel guilty about the mess he had made. He wanted to be alright now, tabula rasa and  _basta_ .


	3. Into the town we go, into your hideaway

H e didn’t expect to see her. He didn’t expect anyone from his past life. Yet here she  was . Four years ha d passed and it seem ed like nothing in a lifetime but it was long enough for Fiore to build himself up again. He didn’t make the same mistakes as before, trying to gain money by smashing everything else in his periphery, damned be his ethics or moral. Four years had apparently been enough for Ludovica to grow. 

She didn’t seem as wild as when she was sixteen and yet her eyes sparkle d the same way. Her clothes were perfectly trendy as they always had been and she still had that trademark hairstyle. No, the change within her was not physical. She had a smile on her lips, she looked appeased and more important than all: happy. 

It seemed surreal. He had dreamt of that moment many, many times. The moment when she would realize she actually loved him and came with him. But no matter how much he liked to daydream about it, his reason knew it could never be true. And yet, and yet, she was in front of him in this café in the south of France.  She wasn’t supposed to be here, not that he was keeping tabs on her, but he thought her new life was between Paris and Rome. Not in this small village where the only  tourist  attraction is the ruins of a castle. 

“Here you are.” She said around a smile as if it was a daily occurrence to find him sitting at the terrace of this café. She sat down beside him and flagged down a waiter to order her coffee in perfect French. They stared at each other in silence while her order was getting ready. Fiore was silent, breathless, afraid of moving and breaking this illusion. Ludo was observing him and changes that had happened to him. Once again he imagined what she saw: he had not changed much physically during those last few years but he didn’t hold himself the same way. He wasn’t as intimidating as before and it chagrined him a bit but he thought that was a natural evolution. When he wasn’t doing illegal business at the back of a club he looked like a pretty normal guy.

The waiter brought back her  _café noir sans sucre s’il-vous-plaît_ and she started sipping it slowly. His had probably turned cold. He felt sick and elated at the same time and this roller caster of emotions made him stare at the table in front of them instead of her green, sparkling, bright eyes. “How did you find me?” He finally asked  with a rough voice from disuse . 

“You are Fiore and I am Ludo.” She answered simply as if it explained anything at all. He looked back at her, trying to understand her, understand the situation they were in. It was all surreal. She shook her head at his confusion. “There has always been something between us, right?” It was supposed to be a question but her tone was affirmative. Yes, there had always been something between them, but mostly there had been a desperate Fiore and a Ludo who didn’t return his affections. He nodded when he saw she expected something from him. “Our relationship was fucked up, wasn’t it?” She asked once again rhetorically. She knew the answer obviously, he knew the answer obviously, everybody who had seen them knew the answer. He nodded again. “You broke me and you fucked me over.”

“I know.” He answered with his voice this time. He had never been able to really apologize to her. “I am sorry. About everything.” He told her sincerely. 

She closed her eyes at his words. Her whole body relaxed,  sagging in her wicker chair and she sighed. He understood what she felt at this moment: relief. “ Thank you, I needed that.” 

Was she here for that? “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see you.”

“To hear me apologize? To give my info to the police?” He asked calmly. He had built a nice, simple life but he didn’t feel anything at the idea of being punished for his crimes. Not if Ludo was his undoing. 

“It was nice to hear you say sorry.” The way she said ‘nice’ sounded like ‘vital’. “As for the police, I don’t want to think about the difficult part of my past any more.” She looked at him with a small smile. “You should try therapy, Fiore. It’s quite good.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

There was a beat and then they both laughed. At what exactly he couldn’t tell but he felt a dam he didn’t know existed breaking in him. Seeing her laugh again was like breathing for the first time in four years. She threw her head back, her eyes were creased in glee and he was struck by the familiarity of that image. 

They talked for hours of everything and nothing as if they were old friends and all the bad blood and history between them was cleaned. It was a bit bizarre but so good at the same time. He swallowed every bit of information she gave about herself from the most mundane to the most important. The subjects she studied at university, her latest painting project, her shopping sprees with Chiara, her new friends, the way  she would always say ‘ciao’ to greet French people who didn’t understand why she was saying goodbye, the way she had never been happier than those last few years  when she could finally find herself . 

“When I went to the Louvres for the first time I felt high. I hadn’t felt that since the day I met you.” She delivered like a punch to his gut. 

He looked at her with big, surprised eyes, unable to school his expression. “Do you ever think of me, Ludo?”

“I do. Do you ever think of me, Fiore?”

“Always.” He whispered truthfully.

Ludo looked at him and he saw her lips tremble. He couldn’t help himself and raised his hand to touch them. His thumb lightly grazed her wet pink lips and she opened them in a gasp. He was transfixed by his thumb on her chin and she let out a big sob that racked her whole body in a violent tremor. He moved his hand away but she caught it at the last minute and put her cheek in his palm. His big hand almost engulfed her face. Her eyes were wet and he rubbed soothingly his thumb under her left eye. “I fucking hate you.” She spat at him while she was  snuggling her face in his hand. 

He shook a bit too at her words and her actions. “I know.”

“But even worse I still love you.” She spat out with the same fervour. Mad at him, mad at herself, mad at the way they had met, mad at their circumstances.

He was shaking something fierce. She felt it and kissed the middle of his palm. Fiore had always been an asshole and a coward and  a  selfish  man  so he knew he didn’t deserve any of this. But he wasn’t strong enough to resist her any longer, he had never been. And even though he was more reasonable than before, he hoped he was at least, he wanted to dive in without any net to catch him. Still he had to ask. “Why?”

She seemed sad at that. Sad at what exactly he didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t know the answer and her own feelings were the last bit of her life she couldn’t get in control, maybe she was sad he wasn’t the overly confident man she had met before, maybe  she was sad she had to explain herself. “Fiore.” She uttered his name in a sigh, as if it was both painful and wonderful to say it. “You made me feel alive for the first time in my life. There was Chiara of course, but I didn’t feel the same way with her and with you.” She intertwined their fingers of the hand she had been holding against her cheek. “ You lit a fire in me. I tried to put it out all these years. I even pretended it wasn’t there when I was with you. I was scared out of my wits of how easily and fast I was falling  for someone like you .”

“And now? Hate or love?”

“Both. I don’t think I can separate the two long enough with you. It’ll always be both.”

And he understood her. Their history had been painful and the emotions too high for them to forget. Their bodies seemed already in synch the way they were both turned toward each other, hand in hand, heart to heart. But their minds still held the scars of the past.

The sun was setting and he was suddenly afraid of the illusion breaking and never seeing her again. He would not survive another separation, he could feel it in his body,  in his guts . He tightened his hand in hers to check she was still here, to check it was real. 

“God Fiore, bring me home.” She asked desperately and Fiore realised she was feeling exactly what he was feeling.

He put down a twenty euros note on the table and tugged her arm toward his motorbike. It was a cheap, second-hand  motorbike but he liked it. He gave her his helmet and she jumped behind him. Her arms circled his chest and he had to take a moment to remember to breathe. He could smell her, he could feel her chest on his back and the warmth of her thighs. Her hands lowered down his torso before one of them settled on his waist on the other on his crotch. He lost control of the motorbike’s handles and it skipped for a few second on the road. She was absolutely mad! And he laughed at that and she laughed too before moving her hand slowly but deliberately on him. 

He was hard as a rock and his hips jumped a little to get more friction. He tried to keep his eyes open and thankfully it was night and most people from the village were already asleep and not driving.

Ludo popped his button open, slid his zip down before putting her hands in his pants as much as she could with the position they were in. She rubbed him with the tips of her fingers and her long nails poked him a few times but the pain was so good. The motorbike was still roaring underneath them and he could feel her moving up and down on it, as if she was fucking the vibrations. 

He knew he wouldn’t last so  he  stopped the bike and helped her off it. He threw the helmet on the ground and caught her in his arms. They sighed in unison against each other. Her head was tucked in his neck and he took a deep breath in her hair. She smelled the same, his body recognized her almost instinctively.  And suddenly they succumbed to their animal desires while forgetting any reserve they might have  had . 

Fiore grabbed Ludo’s face, framed it between his hands so he had access to her whole mouth. They kissed fiercely, their tongues and mouths moving together as if connected  more deeply . They hadn’t seen each other in years and yet it was as if they had picked up where they had left off, as of if there had been no break. He tasted her, roamed his tongue on her palate, on the back of her teeth, on her silky lips. He sucked on her tongue and she drooled on both their chins. He pinched one of her nipples through her shirt. 

She moaned and he slid down on his knees in front of her  on the asphalt. Fiore looked up at her in his new position and she held his stare with one of her own. They were both panting and turned on beyond belief and full of love and hate. She was still wet on her chin from their combined saliva so he gathered it on his thumb,  scrubbing all their drool before putting his thumb in her mouth. She sucked it gently and then he brought it to his own mouth. 

Fiore licked her nipples through her white shirt and he became mad with the sigh of a braless Ludo in a wet white tee-shirt. Her nipples poked through where his hot mouth had left round traces of wetness. She was shivering and moaning and putting her hands in his hair or her hair unable to decide on something.

He finally put down her pants. He looked at her for a moment, half naked, a wet tee-shirt, red cheeks. She was so beautiful he burrowed his face on her stomach, his arms encircling her small waist. He breathed in her deep aroused smell and went to work by lick ing her lips and her clit. She tasted good and he got more and more aggressive with his tongue as she whined louder and louder. 

When he felt she was wet enough, he stood up, lowered his pants, shook his cock a few times before burying himself in her. He couldn’t wait any more and even though the position was awkward because of the difference in their heights he rocked a bit back and forth, enjoying her warmth, her tightness and her wetness.

He grabbed her under her ass then he was fucking her against a  brick  wall, her legs tight around his waist. He plunged inside of her before removing himself almost completely. He plunged again and  relished the way her body shook and trembled beneath his. He could feel every part of her body on him and he wanted to memorise it all. 

The way her fingers scratched his back, the way her legs quivered on him, the way her breasts bounced up and down on his chest, the way her hair tickled his neck, the way she was biting down on his jaw, the way  she  smiled deliriously at him whenever he hit a sensitive spot. 

While he was pushing in and out of her, he rubbed his thumb where her lips met, where her clit was and her cries became more and more desperate, her legs tried to tighten around him more, she looked like she was trying to slip away from his embrace as much as she tried to become one with his body. 

Ludo came, her face showing her pleasure with her mouth wide open and her eyes scrunched tight. She shuddered for a long time and when she opened her eyes, her pupils were still large. He was looking at her intently while h e was still fucking her. Her body was like a rag doll now but she was smiling, she wasn’t feeling discomfort so he kept going. 

“Fiore.” She whispered. “Fiore”. She repeated: it started with a whisper but finished in a moan when he struck something inside of her. “Come for me, do it, come for me.” She ordered gently.

“Inside you?”

“Yes.” She confirmed, her head already held back when she felt him coming inside of her. He felt light and a pleasure he had never felt before, not even with Ludo in the past. He was still twitching in the after glow when he felt his come flowing from her, down her thighs and his. 

He didn’t care about anything at that moment. Just about Ludo who was still looking at him. “ You know…” She started, still out of breath. “I wondered if I would feel the same when I saw you again. Fiore without his nightclub or his connections; without his money and his power. Who would be left?”

“And?”

“It’s just you Fiore.” She replied. And he understood with that sentence and the relaxed traits of her face that what was left in him after you took his influence was just Fiore, just him, and she liked it, she liked the real him. “Are you ever coming back to Rome?” She asked. 

“Never.”

She nodded. “What about Paris?”

Was she scared he would follow her? Did she want that? He didn’t know what to think. “Would you allow me to go?”

She regarded him. “You’ve really changed, haven’t you?” She wondered quietly, almost to herself.

“I don’t know if I’ve changed enough. I know I don’t deserve you.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’m quite an exceptional girl and very few people deserve me.” Her tone suggested a joke but Fiore agreed with her statement. “Do come to Paris.” She added more seriously. “Come with me.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.” She shook her head and slid down from his hold. He checked that her legs were strong enough to hold her straight before slipping out of her. They both hissed at the loss of contact and dressed up again. “No, I’m not sure of anything regarding you Fiore.” She continued. “But I know you’ve been a constant thought in my head, a constant ache between my ribs and my legs. I need you for better or worse. I just do.”

He kissed her carefully, gently, tenderly, grasping the back of her neck in his hand.  She was strong enough to protect herself and he knew now he would protect her no matter what.


End file.
